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Here are all the indie shows happening WrestleMania 35 weekend

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Here are all the indie shows happening WrestleMania 35 weekend

There’s more wrestling to see in person WrestleMania weekend than just WWE.

It might be six months away, but that hasn’t stopped wrestling promotions from starting to announce their plans for WrestleMania weekend. Here is a run down of what’s already been announced for the biggest wrestling weekend of 2019.

Here are all the indie shows happening WrestleMania 35 weekend

Garden party for Ring of Honor

Let’s start with the biggest non-WWE show taking place at Mania weekend: Ring of Honor and New Japan Pro Wrestling‘s G1 Supercard at Madison Square Garden. WWE decided not to host any of next year’s WrestleMania weekend at MSG, which was a bit of an insult for a venue that the McMahon family has been using for over 60 years. So in steps Ring of Honor (RoH), who teams up with New Japan to run a show at MSG on April 6th 2019, the day before WrestleMania. The event is set to feature stars from both RoH and New Japan, although the question is how many of those wrestlers will be snapped up by WWE before April comes around. As for tickets, well it’s already too late: the show sold out on August 10th, nearly nine months before the show.

Manhattan hosts a…penis party

WrestleCon has been a fixture of Mania weekend for years now, hosting both a fan convention and wrestling shows. In 2019 they will be hosting their events in the Hilton Midtown Hotel in Manhattan. On April 4th they will host their annual Mark Hitchcock Memorial Supershow, which will feature one of the most ecclectic lineups that you will see in 2019. The next day, April 5th, they will have Joey Ryan’s Penis Party. WrestleCon decided to try and replicate the winning formula behind Joey Janela’s Spring Break. Instead of “Bad Boy” Joey Janela, this show is built around Joey Ryan, a man famous for throwing people around using his penis. This show should easily win the award for “Show title that no one wants to say to non wrestling fans”.  In addition to those shows UK promotion RevPro will also be running a show.

Here are all the indie shows happening WrestleMania 35 weekend

Collective Bargaining in Jersey City

Two of this years most unique Mania weekend shows, Joey Janela’s Spring Break and Matt Riddle’s Bloodsport were run by New Jersey’s Game Changer Wrestling (GCW) and hosted by WWN. In 2019 GCW has decided to leave WWN behind and set up their own shows, working with other indie promotions under the branding of The Collective. These shows will mostly be at the White Eagle Hall in Jersey City. The Collective will host Cleveland based Absolute Intense Wrestling (AIW) on the Thursday and Canadian company IWS on Saturday. Joey Janela’s Spring Break 3 will run head to head with WrestleCon’s Joey Ryan Penis Party, with the venue not yet announced. The only problem with that is that Janela recently suffered a serious knee injury (including tearing his MCL & PCL) that will keep him out of action for at least six months, so he will probably be injured for Mania weekend.

Here are all the indie shows happening WrestleMania 35 weekend

WWN gets global inspiration in Queens

As well as losing Joey Janela’s Spring Break, British promotion Progress will not be running shows with Gabe Sapolsky’s WWN. If Progress does run events Mania weekend, I expect them to be in conjunction with WWE. After losing their best attended shows from this year’s Mania weekend, WWN needed to look further afield for promotions to draw in the fans. In addition to the Mercury Rising Supershow there will be events from EVOLVE, women’s promotion SHIMMER and monster wrestling company, Kaiju Big Battel. The big news though is that they will host shows from wXw and DDT.

wXw is the biggest promotion in Germany and arguably the best promotion in Europe right now. Their top stars include WALTER and Ilja Dragunov. DDT was founded in 1997 and is very much a Japanese Sports Entertinment company, combining action packed wrestling, storytelling and comedy. If you’ve seen any videos or gifs of weird Japanese wrestling, there’s an 80% chance that it’s from DDT. The shows will be held at La Boom in Queens, with dates and times yet to be announced.

There will probably be more shows and dates announced in the coming months. In addition to the shows I’ve already mentioned, Virginia based NoVa Pro Wrestling will run their first Mania weekend show in New Jersey. Major League Wrestling (MLW), run by former WWE writer Court Bauer, will hold a TV taping that Thursday.

Of course, this is on top of the usual WWE shows like Axxess, NXT: Takeover, the WWE Hall of Fame, WrestleMania, Raw and Smackdown. So anyone attending Mania weekend will have a massive number of shows to pick and choose from. We will provide you with updates on WrestleMania weekend as and when they happen.

Announced Events

Thursday April 4th: WrestleCon Mark Hitchcock Memorial Supershow – Hilton Midtown Hotel, Manhattan 7pm

  • Thursday April 4th: MLW Fusion TV Taping – Melrose Ballroom, Long Island City 7pm
  • Thursday April 4th: AIW – White Eagle Hall, Jersey City 11:59pm
  • Thursday April 4th: GCW Wrestling – White Eagle Hall, Jersey City
  • Friday April 5th: RevPro – Manhattan 4pm
  • Friday April 5th: WWE Hall of Fame – Brooklyn
  • Friday April 5th: Joey Janela’s Spring Break 3 – Venue TBD 8pm
  • Friday April 5th: WrestleCon Joey Ryan’s Penis Party – Hilton Midtown Hotel, Manhattan 8:05pm
  • Saturday April 6th: IWS – White Eagle Hall, Jersey City 4pm
  • Saturday April 6th: NoVa Pro Wrestling – Venue TBD
  • Saturday April 6th: NXT: Takeover – Brooklyn 7pm
  • Saturday April 6th: Ring of Honor and New Japan G1 Supercard, Madison Square Garden, Manhattan 7:30pm

Unannounced dates

Evolve
Mercury Rising
Shimmer
Kaiju Big Battel
wXw
DDT

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